The Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) for fiscal year 1984 provided services to 3 million persons who met income criteria and were judged to be at nutritional risk. Because WIC has to operate within congressional funding levels--$1.36 billion in 1984--only about 1/3 of those eligible can be served. In this report, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) found that improved program management is needed to derive maximum effectiveness and benefits from each dollar spent on WIC. Specifically, local WIC agencies must be made aware of the need to target program benefits to those in the most vulnerable groups, generally considered to be pregnant and breast-feeding women and their infants. GAO recommends that targeting be established as a major program objective, monitoring of state and local agency performance be initiated, and state and local agencies be encouraged to use more outreach and publicity and develop closer ties with medical sources that will refer the most vulnerable individuals to WIC. Optimal use of WIC resources can be fostered by imposing greater rigor and uniformity in establishing and using nutritional risk factors and related standards, strengthening income determination processes, and changing the way WIC funds are allocated to, and managed by, state and local agencies. (CG)

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